Treadmills For Punishment
Treadmills for punishment usually rotate around a horizontal axis, requiring the user to step upwards, like walking up a never-ending staircase. Those punished are outside the wheel. Small similar horizontal-axis treadmills but with a single occupant inside are familiar toys for small pet animals such as hamsters. This type of treadmill is often called a treadwheel.
Treadmills were used in prisons in Britain from 1818 and until the second half of the 19th century; they were like twenty-foot long paddle wheels with twenty-four steps around a six-foot cylinder. Several prisoners stood side-by-side on a wheel, and had to work six or more hours a day, effectively climbing 5,000 to 14,000 vertical feet. While the purpose was mainly punitive, the mill could grind grain, pump water, or ventilate.
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Famous quotes containing the word punishment:
“The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)